About BlueFern®
BlueFern® is a collegial, high performance e-research computing service facility based at the University of Canterbury. BlueFern facilitates research that depends on access to high performance computational resources.
BlueFern® operates in a collaborative partnership with New Zealand eScience Infrastructure (NeSI), a nation-wide supercomputer network. 
Our vision is to provide researchers with easy and convenient access to world class supercomputers.
BlueFern® currently features an IBM Blue Gene/L, and IBM Blue Gene/P and an IBM
POWER7 cluster. These supercomputers are made available via the KAREN advanced research network and can be accessed via NeSI's computation grid.
We invite you to explore the opportunities and other experiences outlined in our website and contact us to see how we can help.
History
BlueFern® was established by scientists and engineers in mid 2006. Since then, we have introduced hundreds of researchers, including collaborative teams, to world class HPC capabilities. Our original foundation partners include:
- the MacDiarmid Institute,
- Victoria University of Wellington,
- Auckland University of Technology and
- the University of Canterbury.
The first supercomputer installed was an IBM p575 cluster. It was later augmented by the addition of the first IBM Blue Gene/L in the southern hemisphere in mid 2007.
Since mid 2011, BlueFern® has partnered with NeSI. With the additional funding received we have upgraded the IBM p575 cluster to an IBM POWER7 cluster and introduced an IBM Blue Gene/P to our services. This collaboration also allows BlueFern to access HPC resources provided by other NeSI collaborators and to provide a wider range of HPC services to all researchers in New Zealand.